TheEconomistJuly 27th 2019 231N
ot since the 1960s, when Mao’s Cultur-
al Revolution spilled over into Hong
Kong, triggering riots and bombings, have
political tensions in the city run so high.
After weeks of protests, antagonism be-
tween critics and supporters of the Com-
munist Party in Beijing has risen sharply.
The local government seems paralysed. Re-
lations with the police have deteriorated.
And worries abound that turmoil will grow.
July 21st brought a crucial change. Dur-
ing the day hundreds of thousands of de-
monstrators, many in black, the chosen
colour of those who support democracy,
marched through the city. They were call-
ing for the formal withdrawal of an extradi-
tion bill (now shelved) allowing criminal
suspects to be extradited to the mainland.
The demonstration was orderly, but two in-
cidents that came after it were not.
One was an outbreak of thuggery in a
suburb called Yuen Long, in which 100 men
in white shirts, armed with canes and rods,
attacked passengers at a railway station,
many of them returning from the march
downtown. Dozens were injured, one criti-cally. The other was an unauthorised prot-
est outside the central government’s head-
quarters in Hong Kong. This was the most
direct challenge so far to the rulers in Beij-
ing. The demonstrators spattered the
country’s emblem with paint (see picture)
and covered the walls with slogans. One
said “Down with the Chinese Communist
Party”. Another called for the “glorious res-
toration” of Hong Kong—a term used by
supporters of the territory’s independence.
Both sides reacted with horror. The
bloodshed in Yuen Long was widely
blamed on members of Hong Kong’s crimi-
nal underworld, known as triads. But anger
has focused on the police and the party’s
supporters. Despite numerous emergency
calls by witnesses, it took riot police more
than half an hour to respond. In a widely
shared video Junius Ho, a legislator and
Communist-party supporter, was seenwalking through Yuen Long, where he
lives, thanking men in white for their “hard
work”. Allegations of collusion between
communists and Hong Kong’s triad gangs
have a long history in the territory.
The response of Chinese officials was
just as disturbing. They said the vandalism
of their office building had “seriously chal-
lenged the central government’s authority”
and tested the “bottom line” of the “one
country, two systems” arrangement under
which China has ruled the territory since- This suggests the officials may regard
the unrest as a challenge to the party itself,
as well as to Hong Kong’s government.
Some Hong Kongers even wonder
whether the central authorities might de-
ploy the Chinese army to restore order.
That would be unprecedented, and create
huge fear in the territory given the army’s
crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests
in 1989 (see Obituary). The idea seems un-
likely, because it would cause an interna-
tional outcry. Still, at a press conference in
Beijing on July 24th about a new white pa-
per on China’s defence, a military spokes-
man was asked whether troops might be
called in. He referred ominously to a clause
in Hong Kong’s garrison law that allows the
army to help the local government if asked.
Few observers think the government
will make big enough concessions to pla-
cate the demonstrators. They used to de-
mand that the territory’s unpopular chief
executive, Carrie Lam, step down. Now
they are calling for wider democratic re-
Unrest in Hong KongAgainst the symbols of Beijing
HONG KONG
Battle lines are being drawn following a night of violence and vandalismChina
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